The Catalan phonology has a certain degree of dialectal variation. Although there are two standard varieties, one based on Central Eastern dialect and another one based on South-Western or Valencian, this article deals with features of all or most dialects, as well as regional pronunciation differences.
Catalan is characterized by final-obstruent devoicing, lenition and (in some dialects) fortition of plosives, voicing assimilation, and gemination (consonant lengthening); a set of 7 to 8 phonemic vowels (plus 2 rare rounded vowels, found mainly in French loanwords and/or Northern Catalan), vowel assimilations (including vowel harmony), many phonetic diphthongs, and vowel reduction, whose precise details differ between dialects.
Consonants {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |+ Consonants of Catalan ! colspan="2" | ! Labial ! Dental/Alveolar ! Palatal ! Velar |- ! colspan="2" | Nasal
! rowspan="2" | Plosive ! voiceless
| colspan="2" | |- ! voiced
| colspan="2" | |- ! rowspan="2" | Affricate ! voiceless | | ()
! voiced
! rowspan="2" | Fricative ! voiceless
! voiced
! rowspan="2" | Approximant ! median
! lateral
! colspan="2" | Tap
! colspan="2" | Trill
Consonants in parentheses () are rare and consonants with an asterisk * are phonemic dialectally.
Marginal consonants include , and .
Phonetic notes: , are laminal denti-alveolar , . After , they are laminal alveolar , . , are velar but fronted to pre-velar position (, ) before front vowels. In some Mallorcan dialects, the situation is reversed; the main realization is palatal , ; but before liquids and rounded back vowels they are velar , . , , are apical front alveolar , , , but the first two are laminal denti-alveolar , before , . is postalveolar or alveolo-palatal before , , , . In addition, is postalveolar or alveolo-palatal before , , , , velar before , and labiodental before , (), where it merges with . It also merges with (to ) before , . , , are apical back alveolar , , , also described as postalveolar (i.e., , , ). (and even, ) is realized as uvular in dialects like Northern Catalan, due to French influence. , are apical alveolar. They may be somewhat fronted, so that the stop component is laminal denti-alveolar, while the fricative component is apical post-dental , (according to , and can be retracted: , ). is rare and may not be phonemic (see below). , are laminal "front alveolo-palatal" , . There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of , , , and ; while and describe them as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters would be more accurate, they (and all literature on Catalan) use the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives while using for alveolo-palatal sounds in examples in other languages like Polish or Chinese. Otherwise, sources, like generally describe them as "postalveolar".
Obstruents Voiced obstruents undergo final-obstruent devoicing.
Table with minimal pairs: {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" |- ! colspan="5" | Coda obstruents minimal pairs |- ! IPA ! word ! gloss ! word ! gloss |- | || || 'cube' || || 'winepress' |- | || || 'thrush' || || 'crooked' |- | || || 'magician' || || 'pebble' |- | || || 'exempt' || colspan="2" style="background-color:#f0f0f0;" | |- | || || 'he/she buzzes' || || 'dark browns' |- | || colspan="2" style="background-color:#f0f0f0;" | || || 'gypsum', 'chalk' |- | || || 'ray' || colspan="2" style="background-color:#f0f0f0;" |
Obstruents assimilate to the voicing of the following consonant and vowel: () / () 'the' vs. () / () 'the friends'. ( / ) 'fish' vs. ( / ) 'big fish'. ( / ) 'I do' vs. () / () 'I do that'.
Plosives Voiced plosives (also called stops) become lenited to approximants in syllable onsets, after continuants: → , → , → .
Exceptions include after lateral consonants (e.g. () / () 'oeil-de-boeuf') and after labiodentals (, ), e.g. () / () ('really good pen'). In non-betacist dialects (those who do not merge with ), remains unlenited (e.g., () / () 'oeil-de-boeuf'). In some dialects, e.g., many Valencian accents, initial (that is, in all environments except after a nasal) can be lenited: () ('cat'). In the coda position, these sounds are always realized as stops; except in some Valencian dialects, where they might be lenited.
In Catalan and Balearic (not in Valencian), labial and , and velar stops and may be geminated (i.e., fortified) in intervocalic position before (e.g., () / () 'village', 'people', () / () 'rule'). Note in some accents (especially from Catalonia), further fortition is possible in the same environment: () / () and () / ().
In Valencian, the pronunciation of these stops would be with usual lenition (except with in non-betacist dialects): (or ) () and ().
Intervocalic is dropped (particularly in participles) in regular speech in Valencian, with compensatory lengthening of vowel ; e.g., () ('afternoon').
In Mallorcan varieties, velar stops and become and word-finally and before front vowels, in some of these dialects, this has extended to all environments except before liquids and back vowels; e.g., () ('blood').
The dorso-palatal may occur in complementary distribution with , only in Mallorcan varieties that have dorso-palatals rather than the velars found in most dialects: () ('war') vs. () ('the war').
In the Valencian dialects final voiceless plosives (, , ) may be lenited before a vowel: () ('all this').
Affricates The phonemic status of affricates is dubious; after other consonants, affricates are in free variation with fricatives; e.g., ~ () / () ('hair parting') and may be analyzed as either single phonemes or clusters of a stop and a fricative.
Alveolar affricates, and , occur the least of all affricates. only occurs intervocalically: () / () ('toxic substance'). In Valencian, many instances of (especially the -itzar suffix) are deaffricated to : () ('to use'). Instances of arise mostly from compounding; the few lexical instances arise from historical compounding. For instance, ('maybe') comes from ('may') + ('be' []). As such, does not occur word-initially; other than some rare words of foreign origin (e.g., 'tsar', 'tsuga'), but it may occur word-finally and quite often in cases of heteromorphemic (i.e., across a morpheme boundary) plural endings: ('all', 'everyone'). Several linguists claim is not a phoneme on its own, but a simple combination of and , in the same way that the in English 'cats' is not phonemic. The distribution of alveolo-palatal affricates, and , depends on dialect: In most of Valencian and southern Catalonia, most occurrences of correspond to the voiced fricative in Standard Eastern Catalan: () ('ice'). In Standard Eastern Catalan, word-initial is found only in a few words of foreign origin (e.g., 'Czech', Txaikovski 'Tchaikovsky') while being found freely intervocalically (e.g., 'car') and word-finally: ('office'). Standard Eastern Catalan also only allows in intervocalic position (e.g., 'medic'). Phonemic analyses show word-final occurrences of (e.g., 'skew ray'), but final devoicing eliminates this from the surface: ('ray'). In various other dialects (as well as in emphatic speech), including Valencian and its standard variety, occurs word-initially and after another consonant to the exclusion of (although there are exceptions). These instances of word-initial seem to correspond to in other dialects, including the standard (Eastern Catalan) on which the orthography is based: ('bedbug'), pronounced in Standard Catalan, is in these varieties ( in Valencian).
There is dialectal variation in regards to affricate length, with long affricates occurring in both Eastern and Western dialects such as in Mallorca and few areas in Southern Valencia. Also, intervocalic affricates are predominantly long, especially those that are voiced or occurring immediately after a stressed syllable (e.g., () / () 'medic'). In Modern Valencian and have merged into , except in some parts of Southern Valencian.
In Aragonese Catalan (especially Ribagorçan) and parts of Central Valencian (the so called accent), voiced affricates are missing (i.e., has merged with : in Standard Valencian → () 'game', and has merged with : in Standard Valencian → () 'kick (of an animal)').
Note that Central Valencian is deaffricated to in many cases (e.g., in Standard Valencian → () 'to use'), following the same rule as the rest of Valencian dialects.
Fricatives The voiced labiodental fricative () occurs in Balearic, as well as in Algherese, Standard Valencian (in Valencian is found especially in northern and southern varieties) and some areas in southern Catalonia (e.g., 'he/she lives'). Everywhere else (including parts of Valencian, like its central dialect), it has merged with the bilabial so that ( 'he/she lives') and ( () / () 'she lives') occur in complementary distribution. In Valencian, is realized as an approximant after continuants: () ('advance'). In Mallorcan, and are in complementary distribution, with occurring before vowels (e.g., () 'blue' [] vs. () 'blue' []). In other varieties that have both sounds, they are in contrast before vowels, with neutralization in favor of before consonants.
In Mallorcan and Menorcan, undergoes total assimilation to a following consonant (just as stops do): ( / ) ('large puff').
In Aragonese Catalan (especially Ribagorçan) and parts of Central Valencian (known as ), voiced fricatives are missing (i.e., has merged with : in Standard Valencian → () 'house', and has merged with : in Standard Valencian → () 'he/she lives').
The dental fricative only appears in Ribagorçan and Lower Aragon, in contrast with . Spanish loanwords with this sound may be replaced by in both Catalan and Valencian.
The fricative is found in Spanish interferences, especially in Aragon and Southern Valencia. Phonetically, it varies between velar and uvular , as in Spanish.
The glottal fricative is found in loanwords and interjections, although is usually replaced by in loanwords.
Sonorants
Laterals Laterals assimilate the place of articulation of the following consonant (see "Assimilations" below). The lateral may be geminated in careful speech (e.g., ( / ) 'illusion'). A geminated may also occur (e.g., () / () 'line').
While "dark (velarized) l", , may be a positional allophone of in most dialects (such as in the syllable coda; e.g., ( / ) 'thousand'), is dark irrespective of position in Eastern dialects like Mallorcan and Standard Eastern Catalan (e.g., () / () 'cloth', 'fabric'). In Valencian, has two main allophones: dark l and clear l, with (dark l) ocurring in final position, before nasal or a stressed vowel (e.g., 'salt', 'palm', 'to fly'), and (clear l) in the rest of cases. In Aragonese Catalan (including Ribagorçan), is palatalized to in consonant clusters; e.g., () ('key'). In Algherese and Ribagorçan word-final is depalatized to : ( / ) ('rooster').
Nasals Nasals assimilate the place of articulation of the following consonant (see "Assimilations" below). In careful speech, and may be geminated (e.g., () / () 'unnecessary', () / () 'to store'). In Algherese and Ribagorçan word-final is depalatized to : ( / ) ('year').
Rhotics The distribution of the two rhotics and closely parallels that of Spanish. Wheeler analyzes intervocalic as the result of gemination of a single rhotic phoneme: or → () / () 'saw', 'mountains' (this is similar to the common analysis of Spanish and Portuguese rhotics). Between vowels, the two contrast (e.g., () / () 'myrrh' vs. () / () 'he/she looks'), but they are otherwise in complementary distribution. appears in the onset, except in word-initial position ( 'donkey'), after , , and ( 'lining', 'honour', 'Israel'), and in compounds ( 'infrared'), where is used.